Writing in Biology

I am now doing a project on the role of antivaxxers and the spread of infectious disease for one of my classes. There are very apparent trends between the 2. For example in Japan Pertussis more commonly known as whooping cough was down to less than 100 cases per year. Then some time in the late 70s there was a scare about the vaccine, people in turn stopped receiving the vaccination for whooping cough. Cases sky rocketed into the 1000s and a disease that was nearly eradicated was now thriving again. In the 80s people starting receiving the vaccine again and the disease fell back into the double digits of cases per year. Unfortunately we are seeing similar trends of denying vaccinations in the US. In particular we have been experiencing a bad measles outbreak. A disease that was absent from the US for quite some time. It was brought back recently when an unvaccinated person traveled to the another part of the world contracted it and returned home. The person lived in a population with low MMR vaccination rates. Measles bagan to spread to to other communities with low vaccination and all of the sudden this disease that was once a thing of the past is now prevalent again essentially because people willing chose not to vaccinate. This now puts people who medically can’t be vaccinated at a serious risk of contracting infectious disease because now the people around them can spread it.  

          Historically, there have been two competing taxonomic systems used to classify the suborders of primates. Tarsiers were initially categorized alongside lemurs and lorises, and apart from humans, apes, and monkeys. This original taxonomic system, known as the gradistic division, held that the two suborders of primates were Prosimii and Anthropoidea. Prosimians, which means “before apes”,  were comprised of lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers, due to the perception that they represented grades of evolution. They were seen to possess many of the same traits, such as similar teeth, skull, and limb anatomy to early, now extinct, primates. These “primitive” features being shared amongst the three extant groups were believed to be evidence of close relation, and were thought to set them apart from the “more evolved” characteristics of anthropoids. The more recent categorization, known as the phyletic division, posits that tarsiers should actually be grouped alongside monkeys, apes, and humans, and apart from lemurs and lorises. In this taxonomic system, the two suborders of primates are instead Strepsirhini and Haplorhini. The reasoning behind grouping tarsiers with the formerly named anthropoids as a new group called haplorhines is that humans, apes, monkeys, and tarsiers all have shared derived features that indicate closer relation amongst them than with the lemurs and lorises which comprise strepsirrhines. Strepsirrhines are defined by features such as wet rhinarium, the presences of a tooth comb, a laterally flaring talus, and a grooming claw on the second digit of the foot. Tarsiers are distinct from the strepsirrhines in that they have a dry rhinarium, lack a tooth comb, as well as having certain skeletal and physiological traits that are more similar to the other haplorrhines.  Furthermore, the extant haplorhines share a number of derived cranial features, including postorbital closure, a retinal fovea in their eyes, a reduced number of nasal conchae, a short, vertical nasolacrimal duct and the lack of a moist rhinarium, giving them the dry nose and continuous upper lip from which the name haplorhine derives. They also all have a hemochorial placenta and an inability to synthesize vitamin D. The tarsiers’ similarities to other prosimians are primitive features, like an unfused mandibular symphysis, molar teeth with high cusps, grooming claws on their second toes, multiple nipples, and a bicornuate uterus. In contrast, their similarities to anthropoid primates seem to be derived specializations indicative of a more recent common ancestor, a hypothesis that has been supported by genomic analysis. The taxonomic system with greater evidentiary support is, therefore, the phyletic division of haplorhines and strepsirrhines.

There are four main types of biomolecules: carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. These biomolecules make up cells, which make up organisms, and are responsible for the mechanisms within the body. Carbohydrates are made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. They form oligosacharrides that can be bound to cell surface proteins to aid in cell signaling and other functions. Proteins are made up of amino acids, which are composed of a central carbon bound to an amino group, a carboxyl group, and a variable "R" group that determines the nature of the amino acid's interactions. The R group can be nonpolar, polar without charge, negatively charged, or positively charged. The polarity of the R group will influence how different amino acids interact intramolecularly or intermolecularly with other molecules. Lipids are made up of mainly hydrocarbons and are therefore insoluble in water. Lipids can be saturated or unsaturated to different levels, which will affect their solidity at room temperature. A saturated lipid is saturated with hydrogens, while unsaturated lipids have double bonds which cause there to be less hydrogens bonded to the carbons. Lastly, nucleic acids are mostly know for making up the DNA in cells. Nucleic acids are made up of nucleotides that consist of a sugar ring, a phosphate group, and a nitrogenous base. In DNA, phosphate groups and sugars form phosphodiester bonds, which make up the sugar-phosphate backbone. The nitrogenous bases form hydrogen bonds across two strands of DNA to form the DNA ladder. 

Water is a polar molecule that has distinct properties. It has permanet partial charges that allow it to react with itself and other polar molecules. Water has high heat capacity and high surface tension. This is because of the hydrogen bonds that result from one water molecule's hydrogen noncovalenty bonding to the oxygen of another water molecule. The bonds are hard to break thus resulting in these properties. 

Protein being one of our major food groups in our health plate is also a very controversial topic when determining what is good or not good for the human body. There are different sources of protein such as meats, fish, nuts, beans/lentils, cheese and poultry. Red meat is said to be high in saturated fat and is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization. A carcinogen is a substance that has the ability to cause cancer in living tissue, meaning that humans should limit the amount of red meat eaten a week. Although these meats such as lamb, beef and pork are 'probable' causes of cancer, they dont indicate the risk of getting cancer. There are benefits however to eating lean red meat such as vitamin B12, zinc and iron. Red meat is not only classified as being a probable cause of cancer, but it is also a leading cause of heart disease. In the states, cardiovascular disease is the number one leading cause of death. Many Americans should consider limiting the amount of red meat they eat and substitute it with a variety of other protein dense and vitamin dense foods such as tofu, fish and beans/lentils. A variety of vegetables also have a high content of protein and fiber such as broccoli, cauliflower, spinach and brussel sprouts.

Narrative to Exposition

I woke up. I brushed my teeth and took a shower and put fresh clothes on. I had breakfast, which was a cup of scrambled eggs, half a cup of corn beef hash, and 2 link sausages. I also had a glass of almond milk. I read three chapters of a book on the fall of the Mexica Empire. I went to orgo class and arrived one minute late at 9:06AM. After orgo, I went to physics, then French, then history, then I attended my writing in biology class.

Categories:

Self-care:

I brushed my teeth. I took a shower. I got dressed.

Breakfast:

I ate a plate of food with 1 cup of scrambled eggs, 1/2 cup of corn beef hash, and 2 sausage links. I one cup of almond milk.

Classes:

I attended organic chemistry. I attended physics. I attended French. I attended history. I attended writing in biology.

We said News Punch is not reliable or trustable resources because it is a journal website with many ads. When there is a sponser to a website, articles can be biased or favoring one opinion more than the other. The fact that the journal does cite some primary resources and the link to it, I think you can use that link to go to the original article and cite from that to have valid evidence. However, for some statements, this journal does fail to cite where they got their source from. Therefore, this website can only be used as a first step to reach out to primary resources.

I woke up at 6 in the morning. I brushed my teeth and changed into some warm clothes. I went to work making coffee for people for three hours. I got grab and go which consisted of a bacon egg and cheese english muffin and a yogurt. Then I went to class for an hour. After class I went back to work and made more coffee for another hour. I had lunch for half an hour with a friend. After lunch I walked to my writing class which lasts for two hours and twenty minutes. 

Kurt LaFlamme, Smeralda Casimir

This website seems to be valid and reliable, but not for collegiate level research. It seems like a good website to learn a few things about ecology. The website offers dozens of languages, the publication is up to date, has the ability to share on social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, and Google, and the website has its own declaration of principles which includes a code of ethics along with mission and objectives. The resource links are alphabetized and are from around the world. There are also no advertisements on this website. The things that go against the reliability and validity of this website are that it does not have http://, the layout/web design seems immature and a little outdated, the links are old, and the last post on the website's social media account was nearly 4 years ago. Ultimately, it seems like an educational website that a middle or high school student would use for a research paper.

Partner: Cameron Bailey

https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/home

After exploring the site, Trends in Ecology and Evoulution, we have decided that the site itself is a reliable source. The papers on the site are well organized including many references from scholarly sources. You are also able to easily view where the information from each individual source is used in the article. This site is also active on social media and hold around 15,000 followers on twitter and 8,000 subscribers on Youtube. We then determined that this site was a research review site that included an editorial board that listed reviewers and authors along with their contact info and dates.